"Stop button" to stop current processes

[chr]

I previously reported #640, where lyx waits forever for latex (without any
indication in the lyx-window that there is a problem, and you can't do
anything in lyx).

In this situation it would be nice to have some sort of "Stop button" to stop
the current process that Lyx is waiting for. This might also be useful if
you've started a long compilation process and decide that you want to abort it.

[levon]

already exists (view->child processes)

[chr]

Hmm.. ok, I guess this is a bit more complicated then.. The original
problem is that the latex process seems to go into an infinite loop,
and that the lyx ui does not work, so I can't do (view->child
processes->kill).

To get this behaviour, try doing (view-DVI) on the file:

​http://www.md.kth.se/~chr/lyx/bugs/hyperref_pdftex.lyx

I just noticed that the latex process crashes after about a minute with
an error about exceeded capacity. But before that, the only way I could
get back the control of lyx was by manually killing the latex process.
That's why I'd like the stop button... on the other hand, if I can't
access (view-child processe), maybe the stop button wouldn't work either.

To conclude, perhaps this is instead a question of checking why lyx does
not respond while processing this file?

Btw, would it make sense to have some indication in the toolbar (a
flashing button or something) that there exist child processes, and when
you click on the button you open (view->child processes)?

PS. I know that I can't really use latex on a file where I use hyperref in
this way. However, the question is then whether lyx should stop
responding when a child process is misbehaving. DS

[levon]

We wait for latex to finish. When you have a broken document,
it waits for more input and lyx waits forever. Just don't
export pdflatex-only documents to latex, since you know it won't work

[chr]

It's the waiting forever behaviour I dislike, since it means lyx freezes, when
it's child process doesn't terminate. I'm aware of this now, but someone else
is likely to interpret it as a lyx bug... (unless he's observant and sees that
latex is still only in it's first run, and that it takes all the cpu power).

Without having any clue how this is implemented, it seems to me that it would
be better if the latex process was run in the 'background' so that the lyx
ui still works (and especially the view->child processes etc).

Or am I missing something here?

[levon]

probably, but that is not this bug, and could do with some discussion
on lyx-devel first (i.e. please complain to lyx-devel). Thanks.

[levon]

mass verify. grep -v ApplesWin